STAKEHOLDERS 2.

0
How to Build Better
Social Media Campaigns

A white paper from the Council of Public Relations Firms

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 STAKEHOLDERS 2.0
How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns

T
he opportunity to identify, influence, and
mobilize stakeholders is moving into a dynamic KEY TAKEAWAYS
new phase. One recent study of global Fortune
100 companies found that 79% were using tools like
• Social media tactics are part of broader
Facebook, YouTube, blogs, and Twitter to engage with
public relations strategies.
stakeholders.1 A late 2009 survey of global business
leaders found that about half planned to increase their • Stakeholder online behavior should be
marketing budgets for 2010, with 60% of those report- considered in its distinctness and not
ing social media as an area of investment, second only just conflated with traditional stake-
to email.2 And a survey fielded by the consulting holder behavior. Applying a social
firm Deloitte found that “the enterprise’s use of com- media matrix can help to generate a
munities and social media” is showing “signs of
thoughtful social media design.
maturation,” with “39 percent of the respondents indi-
cated that more full-time people are being deployed to • Successful social media executions
manage the communities.”3 should mobilize and build groups
Yet for all the money and human resources spent, too
around different stakeholder personas.
many social media campaigns don’t achieve break- In this way, they can serve to build
through results. Sometimes cultural or administrative deeper stakeholder relationships with
snafus occur: The communications team has great the enterprise.
ideas for blogs and other social media tools, yet execu-
tion suffers as nervous executives in other departments
back away from campaigns or slow them down with
profiles or personas based on their online activity. Per-
cumbersome legal checks. An even bigger problem has
haps the best known example of such an analysis is
to do with campaigns themselves. With social media so
Forrester’s Groundswell methodology, which identifies
entrenched, some companies don’t fully comprehend
and quantifies seven distinct social media personas,
the consequence of their actions or inactions, nor have
including “creators,” “critics,” “collectors,” “joiners”
they mapped out and implemented a thoughtful
and “spectators.” Mobilizing these personas, compa-
approach. Eager for a presence on sites like Facebook
nies can add new sophistication to stakeholder
and Twitter, companies throw money at a technology
interaction, thus achieving superior results.
or creative idea yet fail to design a campaign tailored to
strategic ambitions. This white paper seeks to take methodologies such as
Groundswell to the next level by considering executions
Many firms could improve engagement by under-
that support specific public relations campaigns and
standing audiences better and exploiting different
goals. What’s needed, we think, is a framework that
ways people have come to use the technology. As some
relates the different social media segments to the stake-
analysts have observed, social media audiences are not
holders public relations practitioners typically address –
identical to off-line audiences. People fall into different
customers, employees, analysts, the public, executive

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 STAKEHOLDERS 2.0 How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns

management, etc. Companies should mobilize social

media for public relations challenges by considering in a
systematic way not merely how we connect with tradi- Snapshot of Online Creators
tional stakeholders, but with persona-specific stakeholders. Stakeholders 24%
The question to ask is not “How can we engage cus-
According to Forrester,
tomers?” or “how can we engage employees?” but “nearly three-quarters of Critics
rather, “How can we engage “customer-creators, cus- US online adults were 37%
tomer-critics, employee-critics, employee-collectors and participating in one way or
the like?” A superior social media campaign would another with social media.”
Conversationalists
devise unique roles for each of these subgroups, deploy- Here is a breakdown of the (Connectors)
ing tactics that motivate these subgroups to work in groups that are analyzed in 33%
concert with one another in the company’s interest. “Stakeholders 2.0.”

(While not apples to apples, Collectors

Applying a modified version of the Groundswell 20%
framework, this white paper presents a matrix tool for we see many similarities
developing an effective social media campaign. The between our paper’s
“Connectors” and Forrester’s Spectators
paper describes sample public relations actions that
“Conversationalists.”) 70%
campaigns can use to mobilize specific social media
stakeholders, offering examples from successful cam-
paigns. We’ll end by introducing principles to guide Adapted from Forrester’s North American Technographics®
Groundswell Heroes Online Survey, Q4 2009 (US)
you as you apply the social media matrix to your own
pressing communications assignments.

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 STAKEHOLDERS 2.0 How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns
The Stakeholder Matrix
I
n their book Groundswell: Winning in A World Trans-
formed by Social Technologies, and in related reports
and blog postings, Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li
introduced the concept of “social technographics,” a
method of understanding an audience by breaking it
down according to six “levels of participation.”4 The
two envision social media participation as a ladder
that begins with inactivity at the bottom, proceeds
upward to include spectatorship (people who read
blogs, watch video, listen to podcasts) and affiliation
(people who join social networking sites), and reaches
its pinnacle at creation (people who publish webpages,
write blogs, and upload video).
As Bernoff and Li note, social technographics doesn’t
divide an audience into segments but rather into pro-
files – the difference being that any one individual can
simultaneously occupy multiple profiles or rungs on
the ladder. Bernoff and Li recommend that companies
not approach social media as a “list of technologies to
be deployed as needed,” but that they rather take a
more deliberate approach: “[A]nalyze their customers’
Social Technographics first, and then create a social
strategy based on that profile.”
Social technographics is not the only attempt to articu-
late a more methodical approach to social media; any
number of other schemas exist for distinguishing sub-
groups or personas in a social media audience. Yet as
clients and public relations professionals quickly find,
these schemas tend to be of limited use, as they are
general rather than defined for a particular discipline.
To arrive at a more effective public relations strategy,
companies should consider social technographics in
relation to traditional public relations stakeholders
such as employees, customers, executives, and analysts.
After all, people don’t stop acting as conventional
stakeholders when they log onto a Facebook page;
they retain those identities. We can engage diverse
audiences most effectively if we develop a strategy
that considers both their relationship to the company
and to social media technologies.
We’ve created a tool that clients and public relations
professionals can apply to guide their strategy devel-
opment in a systematic fashion. This matrix sets
traditional stakeholders on one axis and social media
profiles on the other. Rather than adopt six social
media profiles as Bernoff and Li do, we include the fol-
lowing five, which we believe better capture essential
social media activities:5
• Innovators/Creators – Audience members who
enjoy putting something new – something of them-
selves – out on the web for others to consume. This
is social media as self-expression, potentially in
defense or in opposition to a company or brand.
• Critics/Commentators – Audience members who
enjoy critiquing and commenting on the self-expres-
sion of others. These audience members tend to
supplement or refine content, rating, ranking, and cate-
gorizing it for the benefit of themselves and others.
• Connectors/Communicators – Audience members
who enjoy spreading word of mouth about content
created by others. These individuals are content syn-
dicators. They often are storytellers who spin
narratives about other content in the process of
telling others about it.
• Collectors/Curators – Audience members who enjoy
organizing content created by others. These individu-
als are content aggregators. Like Critics, Collectors/
Curators form judgments about companies and
brands, although these judgments tend to be implicit,
reflected in the particular categories Collectors/Cura-
tors use to organize content.
• Spectators – Audience members who enjoy viewing,
reading, or listening to content created by others, but
who do not engage in more active content creation,
refinement, syndication, or aggregation. The majority
of online stakeholders fall into this category.
Again, these five personas are not mutually exclusive;
an individual can occupy multiple personas at any one
time, or as is also common, can flit between two or
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 STAKEHOLDERS 2.0 How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns

more personas. Mapping these personas against the
traditional stakeholders with whom clients and public
relations professionals typically communicate, we
arrive at the matrix below.
We can use this matrix to construct a variety of public
relations campaigns, including Corporate Social
Responsibility, Customer Relations, Investor Relations,
Employee Relations, Product Innovation, Reputation
Management, and Crisis Management. We can also
use the matrix to analyze existing campaigns to deter-
mine how they are working and how they might be
further developed and optimized.
Consider three stakeholder groups: Customers, Employ-
ees and Alumni, and Citizen Activist Groups. For each
of these groups, the chart on the following pages cites
just a few of the many possible actions firms have taken
that employ or consider stakeholders personas.

The Stakeholders 2.0 Matrix

Stakeholders

Customers Employees Media Manager Investor Citizen Etc.

and Alumni Activist
Groups

Customer- Employee- Media- Manager- Investor- Citizen-

Creator
Creator Creator Creator Creator Creator Creator

Customer- Employee- Media- Manager- Investor- Citizen-

Critic
Critic Critic Critic Critic Critic Critic
Social Media Profiles

Customer- Employee- Media- Manager- Investor- Citizen-

Connector
Connector Connector Connector Connector Connector Connector

Customer- Employee- Media- Manager- Investor- Citizen-

Collector
Collector Collector Collector Collector Collector Collector

Customer- Employee- Media- Manager- Investor- Citizen-

Spectator
Spectator Spectator Spectator Spectator Spectator Spectator

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 STAKEHOLDERS 2.0 How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns
Social Media Campaign Matrix
Customers
• Engage consumers in product
trials (Doritos)
• Solicit customer feedback via
hosted discussion forums (e.g.
mystarbucksidea)
Creator • Engage consumers in product
development (Mountain Dew,
Dunkin Donuts)
• Customer voting about product/
marketing preferences
(Domino’s Pizza, Mountain Dew,
Tropicana, Coke)
• Tools for monitoring and
analyzing independent customer
feedback sites (e.g. bulletin
Critic boards, “I Hate” sites, Walmart-
Social Media Profiles
watch.com)
• Mobilize customers to answer
other customers’ questions
(Disney Moms)
• Sponsor customer opinion
community sites (Best Buy)
• Have customers hold word of
mouth, brand-focused parties
(e.g. Brand about Town)
• Host websites facilitating
customer peer interactions
(e.g. NavyMoms)
• Third party websites that
encourage customer to
customer interactions around
brands (FourSquare)
Connector
• Encourage “Tweetups”
• Fan generated websites, fan
pages on Facebook/Twitter
(e.g. Jim Beam Bourbon)
• Social Responsibility giveaways
with community voting compo-
nents (Nike)
Stakeholders
Employees and Alumni
• Employee generated blogs/
Twitter (Hewlett Packard)
• Employee generated videos
(Deloitte, Best Buy)
• Employee generated product
development (IBM)
• Spotlight employees on company
blogs (Disney)
• Employee information websites
(glassdoor.com)
• Anonymous employee sugges-
tion boxes
• Internal employee idea
exchange sites (Best Buy’s Geek
Squad Forum)
• YouTube videos about the “real-
ities” of employee experience
(Home Depot)
• Employee tweets (Best Buy)
• Employee alumni Facebook
pages (Myles Pizza)
• Employee Alumni websites
(Swiss Re, McKinsey)
• Internal employee community
sites (Best Buy’s Blueshirt
Nation, IBM)
Citizen Activist Groups
• Post footage/reporting online
(DemocracyNow, Citizen Global)
• Promote citizen Journalism/
Blogging (The Uptake)
• Submit/vote on ideas on feed-
back sites (AmericaSpeaking
Out)
• Encourage defenders to create
fresh content that establishes
the organization’s point of view
• Crowdsource municipal job
candidates
• Crowdsource problems
that require fixing by local
government
• Solicit issue-oriented complaints
(Greenpeace)
• Create News/Watchdog sites
(CTWatchdog, DaveyD)
• Encourage defenders to debate
people in public forums and
blogs, espousing the point of
view.
• Maintain Facebook pages/
Twitter Feeds (Ashton Kutcher
and Malaria)
• Solicit User-Generated content
behind social missions (Green-
peace’s BP logo redesign
contest)
• Organize events in multiple
localities (350.org, Iranian
democracy movements)
• Encourage friend-to-friend
emailing (Tcktcktck)
• Volunteer Connection websites/
virtual volunteering (volunteer-
match.org)
• Encourage defenders to share
the creators’ and critics’
content and point of view
with others.
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 STAKEHOLDERS 2.0 How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns
Social Media Campaign Matrix (cont.)
Customers
• Nurture relationships with brand
evangelists (Coca-Cola)
• Tours/events for brand collectors
(Tag Heuer)
Collector
• Fan websites (e.g. fanpop)
Social Media Profiles
• Disseminate content that raises
awareness and builds brand
identity (Pop Tarts, Kanye West)
• Disseminate content that drives
purchase interest (Old Spice)
Spectator
• Disseminate content that builds
brand community (Mayo Medical
School)
Let’s examine these actions in greater detail by developing some examples from actual campaigns. We start
with the social media stakeholder grouping that organizations have sought to engage with the most using
social media, customers.
Stakeholders
Employees and alumni
• Company historians (Coca-Cola)
• Build morale and support by
enabling bloggers to post
content about the organization
(Army)
• Inform employees about the
firm’s policies, including social
media policies (Army)
Citizen Activist Groups
• Collect and display media
footage on blog (tcktcktck)
• Collect and display other news
(OMBWatch, CTWatchDog)
• Encourage defenders to secure
3rd party support, aggregate all
content that supports the point
of view.
• Private companies can build
awareness of CSR investments
by providing profiles of worthy
public endeavors the firm is
considering funding (Pepsi).
• Increase sales of non-profit mer-
chandise (Livestrong)
• Raise and shape public
awareness (Obama)
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 STAKEHOLDERS 2.0 How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns
Customer Stakeholder Personas
F
irst consider the customer-creator. For several years
now, brands have run popular campaigns soliciting
the involvement of customer-creators in product
promotion. With a $450,000 PR budget, Doritos in 2009
executed a highly effective campaign in which it chal-
lenged fans to become marketing communications
specialists and create a top-ranked Super Bowl ad. Lean-
ing heavily on social media and viral video to reach its
core audience of 16- to 24-year olds, Doritos “reaped
accolades for its prowess in user-generated content, and
media impressions valued at $40 million in ad equiva-
lency from Today to The Tonight Show. Doritos also saw a
16% rise in sales for the week after the Super Bowl over
the previous year.”6 Companies can activate customers
in a creative role by soliciting customer feedback in
hosted discussion forums and by crowdsourcing prod-
uct development. A study fielded by Price Waterhouse
Coopers found that CEOs globally were especially inter-
ested in engaging with consumers in product
development, with 60% expecting that “consumers will
play a more active role in product development in their
companies, another dimension of value perceived by
consumers and a trend represented by open source com-
puting and social networks.”7
Starbucks’ My Starbucks Idea website8 affords con-
sumers the opportunity to suggest new products and
other changes they’d like to see at the company, and
also to receive company feedback and updates on these
ideas. When Dunkin Donuts wanted new flavors for its
doughnuts, it held a contest to solicit customer ideas
and received 90,000 suggestions, including award win-
ners like the “Cop Cake,” the “Monkey-See
Monkey-Donut,” and the “Much A Do about Nut
Things”.9 In April 2010, Mountain Dew launched three
new flavors co-created by some 4,000 consumers as part
of the brand’s DEWmocracy 2 campaign. Consumers
will have a chance to sample the flavors and vote on
their favorite. During the brand’s 2008 DEWmocracy 1
campaign, “more than 1 million people participate in
the product creation and selection process.”10
Doritos “reaped accolades
for its prowess in user-
generated
content ...”
Beyond engaging customers as creative forces, compa-
nies have turned to them as critics. Companies like
Domino’s Pizza, Mountain Dew, Tropicana, and Coke
get the critical juices flowing by asking customers to
vote on their product or marketing preferences.11 Com-
panies such as Best Buy sponsor customer opinion
community sites, while Disney has mobilized cus-
tomers to answer other customers’ questions – a task
that usually involves some critical commentary.12
Finally, analytical tools exist for monitoring and analyz-
ing independent customer feedback sites, including
bulletin boards and “I Hate” sites.
Customers become especially valuable to companies
when they serve as connectors with other customers,
thus spreading the word about the company and its
brands. The firm Brand About Town has customers
organize brand-focused parties where they can spread
word of mouth among other key influencers. The
United States Navy hosts NavyMoms.com, a commu-
nity website for mothers and other family members of
active servicemen and women. Third party websites
like FourSquare encourage customers to interact with
one another around brands, while companies can also
drive customers to platforms like Twitter to engage
with one another and hold “Tweet-ups.” Fan generated
websites and fan pages on Facebook and Twitter are
venues for customers to connect with one another
around brands (an example: Jim Beam Bourbon),13
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 STAKEHOLDERS 2.0 How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns
Content directed at spectators
can influence purchase decisions,
as Old Spice discovered when its
Isaiah Mustafa videos yielded
a 107% month over month
sales boost.
while companies like Nike have held social responsibil-
ity giveaways with community voting components
(consumers vote on which neighborhood groups and
initiatives the company should support with grants).14
Moving on to customers as collectors, we find that
brands like Coca-Cola nurture relationships with
Employee Stakeholder Personas
E
mployees have generated wide interest as partici-
pants in social media. As far as employee-creators
go, firms like Hewlett Packard have made use of
employee blogs, while Deloitte has made use of
employee generated videos to appeal to younger
potential hires,20 and Best Buy held an internal compe-
tition for an employee video to encourage employees
to sign up for the firm’s pension program.21 Firms like
IBM pursue internal crowdsourcing to help generate
new product development, while companies like Dis-
ney spotlight employees on company blogs.22 At IBM,
businesses identified by internal crowdsourcing
brought in $100 billion in revenue and enjoyed a 44.1%
margin in 2008.23
evangelists, who commonly collect information and
memorabilia about the brand. Watchmaker Tag Heuer
holds tours and events for its brand collectors,15 while
companies can also monitor and nurture online fan
groups, which typically become focal points for the
collection of images, videos, and information. On the
fan site Fanpop, the 800 members of Lady Gaga’s
Fashion group posted colorful images and video of the
singer while also taking on the critics’ role, voting on
their favorite Lady Gaga’s hairstyle.16
As for customers as spectators, Kanye West builds
brand awareness by serving up funny tweets, while
brands like Pop Tarts also use entertaining content to
build mindshare.17 Content directed at spectators can
influence purchase decisions, as Old Spice discovered
when its Isaiah Mustafa videos yielded a 107% month
over month sales boost.18 Finally, the Mayo Medical
School used content on Facebook groups to build fel-
lowship among its incoming freshman class. One
school official was quoted as saying, “We used to
worry about learning [new students’] names because
we didn’t want them to feel isolated. Well, now they
know everybody by the time they get here.”19
Employee-critics are a touchy subject; many firms
have promulgated restrictive social media policies for
their employees to prevent them from criticizing the
company and divulging unflattering information. The
fact is that employees often take on the critic’s role
online, using such third party sites as glassdoor.com to
share information. Some companies have harnessed
the employee-critic, sponsoring anonymous employee
suggestion boxes or posting employee videos about
the realities of working at the company. IBM has a
reported 17,000 internal blogs and 100,000 employees
using them,24 while Home Depot’s “Behind the
Apron” video series on YouTube features employees
talking about both positive and negative dimensions
of working at the company. As one blogger has noted,
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 STAKEHOLDERS 2.0 How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns
Home Depot employees “are upfront that you will be
on your feet for eight to nine hours in some roles,
while others will require cold calling. This trans-
parency is valuable, especially in the field of social
media.”25 Best Buy has its Loop Marketplace, an inter-
nal site where employees can exchange ideas, and also
a game where employees can predict future trends
that are then “traded,” for better or for worse, by other
employees, as on the stock market.26
Finally, companies can and have addressed employees
as connectors, collectors, and spectators. Employee-
collectors seem to be a somewhat rare species as a
social media stakeholder; very few firms seem to have
mobilized them, short of identifying a few as in-house
firm historians. Companies have done far more with
employee-connectors. Best Buy trusts its employees to
Tweet up the brand – without even laying out formal
Twitter guidelines.27 One local pizza restaurant, Myles
Pizza and Pub in Bowling Green, OH, has a Facebook
page for its young alumni to stay in touch with one
another.28 Although the concept of tapping into ex-
employees isn’t new,29 social media is fostering
renewed interest in cultivation of university-style
alumni networks.
The global re-insurance company Swiss Re became the
first in its industry to start an alumni network and as
of March 2010 had nearly 1,400 members. As the com-
pany explains on its portal, https://www.swissre-
alumni.com/login, alumni “have the opportunity to
renew old friendships, establish new ones, expand
your professional network, and have access to events,
news, and exciting career prospects,” while the firm
sees benefits in recruiting, business development and
global branding.30 Management consulting firms such
The fact is that employees often take
on the critic’s role online, using such
third party sites as glassdoor.com to
share information.
as Booz Allen, Deloitte, and McKinsey also feature
extensive alumni portals. On McKinsey’s site
(https://alumni.mckinsey.com/ alumni/login.jsp),
alumni can search for and post jobs, and prospective
employees can learn about what former McKinsey
employees have done since leaving the company.
Deloitte’s offers an interactive newsletter “dedicated to
helping you keep in touch with what’s happening at
Deloitte, in business in general, as well as past and
present Deloitte professionals.”31
As far as employee-spectators go, the US Army helps
shape impressions and build morale among soldiers
(as well as their families and the American public) by
encouraging blogging by soldiers, their families, and
army supporters.32 Seeking to avoid information leak-
age of the sort that affected Israel’s military recently,
the military also has posted a video urging soldiers to
be careful about what they post. This last execution
illustrates something that many organizations now do:
Use social media to inform employees about policies
of all kinds.33
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 STAKEHOLDERS 2.0 How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns
Citizen-Activist Group Stakeholder Personas
C
itizen activist groups are an up-and-coming area
of social media interest. Citizen-creators have
come to the fore in the posting of footage online
by individuals and citizen groups. Examples include
the television show DemocracyNow, as well as Citizen
Global, a platform that enables everyday individuals to
post video footage relating to specific social issues.34
Full-fledged amateur journalism sites and blogs such
as The Uptake offer more opportunities for grassroots
creative involvement.35 House Republicans recently
created America Speaking Out, a platform for everyday
citizens to post and vote on ideas.36
As Craigslist founder Craig Newmark has observed,
municipal governments are beginning to use social
media technology to allow consumers of government
services to troubleshoot problems that need fixing
using their smartphones. A civic group in Providence,
RI is going online to crowdsource candidates for an
upcoming mayoral election, allowing the residents to
serve as a “collective hiring manager.”37 In both cases,
designers of social media tools are fashioning new roles
for citizen-critics. Or take Moxyvote.com, a website
that allows retail shareholders to vote on corporate bal-
lots. “Advocates” including a number of non-profit
groups present voter recommendations on the site, in
effect serving as “investor-critics” of expert opinion.
Users can in turn serve as investor-critics (a social
media group not discussed here) by commenting on
the positions of the advocates. Finally, any number of
Facebook pages and Twitter feeds
are important venues for concerned
citizens to mobilize together.
blogs and watchdog sites provide critical opinion (a
good example: the hip hop site DaveyD)38 and allow
citizens and groups to articulate complaints.39 In the
wake of the oil spill in the Gulf, the environmental
group Greenpeace gave citizens a voice in a memorable
way by sponsoring a contest for the satirical redesign
of British Petroleum’s logo.40
Two other social stakeholders to consider here are citi-
zen-connector and citizen-collector. Facebook pages
and Twitter feeds are important venues for concerned
citizens to mobilize together; Ashton Kutcher and
Kevin Rose tapped into two million twitter followers
to pressure government officials to tackle the problem
of malaria in developing countries.41 Activist groups
are soliciting user-generated content behind social
missions, thus connecting citizens to one another (as in
the Greenpeace example above); they are encouraging
friend to friend emailing (see the
efforts of the global warming activist
organization tcktcktck); and they are
organizing events in multiple locali-
ties using online tools, as in the case
of the anti-global warming group
350.org.42 Matching websites offer
volunteers an opportunity to connect
with social action groups in their areas. As far as citi-
zen-collector goes, groups such as Tcktcktck collect
and display media footage on their blogs – a common
tactic in the activist space.43 Websites like OMBWatch
(a group advocating for open government) and
CTWatchdog (an activist group around local Connecti-
cut issues) also collect and display other news relevant
to their favored causes.44
Finally, organizations are profitably deploying a num-
ber of tactics related to citizen-spectators. Governments
and activist groups are mobilizing Twitter to shape
spectators’ awareness around events, issues, and
people. In September 2010, President Obama’s commu-
nications team tweeted a denial that Michelle Obama
had ever told the French First Lady that she felt she
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 STAKEHOLDERS 2.0 How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns
was in “hell” in the White House. As the New York
Times reported, “the remark rapidly boomeranged
around the Internet and threatened to become an issue.
That prompted the response from [Obama spokesman
Robert Gibbs], who is followed by 95,446 people.”
Activist groups like Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong use
social media to convince spectators to buy merchandise
that benefits their cause, while private firms have also
used social media to raise public awareness about
social issues and the company’s philanthropic efforts.45
Pepsi’s Facebook page and its “Refresh Project” web-
site allow spectators to learn about philanthropic
projects the firm is considering funding – a move that
pays dividends even if the spectator is not motivated to
go further and vote for his or her favorite project, as
Pepsi allows.46
Other Social Media Stakeholder Personas
E
ffective campaigns will inevitably incorporate
several or even many of these actions at the same
time, mobilizing multiple social stakeholder
groups. To understand the full complexity of an effec-
tive social media campaign, note that we’ve only
offered a few examples of the kinds of actions that can
be deployed. Also, we’ve focused on three classes of
shareholders, but others also represent significant
opportunities for engagement via public relations.
Managers are venturing increasingly into the social
media space (e.g. CEO blogs and tweets), and
investors, too, have garnered attention recently in rela-
tion to social media. As BusinessWeek and the Wall
Street Journal recently reported, websites like
Moxyvote.com makes proxy voting more accessible to
small, individual investors, threatening a wholesale
shifting of power away from management and toward
shareholders. “It’s easier than ever to vote the bums
out of the executive suite,” the Journal observed.
Excited by this development, former New York State
Pepsi’s Facebook page and
its “Refresh Project” website
allow spectators to learn
about philanthropic projects
the firm is
considering
funding.
Governor Elliot Spitzer noted that “bringing the tech-
nologies of the new politics’ to the corporate context
will make information access easier and ultimately
even permit direct shareholder-to-shareholder com-
munication.” Technology may one day soon “help
stockholders take control of the corporations they
own.”47 In crafting effective public relations cam-
paigns, companies and their public relations
professionals should think about how they might
mobilize the four investor social media stakeholder
groups to the firm’s advantage.
Finally, we should note that none of the charts in this
white paper has covered all the potential social stake-
holder groups. Politicians, government officials,
vendors, business-to-business partners, industry experts,
academics, journalists, and market analysts each gives
rise to five social media stakeholder groups, and these
groups can in turn be mobilized in campaigns.
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 STAKEHOLDERS 2.0 How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns

Conclusion

T
he creative opportunities of social media are
endless. Yet to make sure your campaign
unfolds coherently and with maximum impact,
don’t just throw money at the new technologies. Think
through your audiences and how best to mobilize
them so as to assure their engagement.
This paper has argued that companies should deploy
tactics designed to appeal not merely to traditional
stakeholders, but to social media stakeholders within
those groups. We’ve presented a tool – a social media
matrix – that you can use to help generate a thoughtful
social media design or optimize a design already in exis-
tence. And we’ve also begun to explore the many tactics
that companies have used to mobilize and generate
enthusiasm across specific social stakeholder groups.
Building better social media campaigns isn’t easy. In
today’s world, people simultaneously maintain a
number of online and offline identities. They’re no
longer simple stakeholders of the companies with
whom they relate. Rather, they’re social stakeholders,
and they require a strategy of appropriate nuance and
complexity. By deploying a Stakeholders 2.0 approach
to strategy, we can make the most of the wild and con-
stantly shifting communications environment we now
find ourselves in.

Key Principles of Social Media Stakeholder Strategy

• Target the right audiences to meet specific campaign objectives.

• Do your best to get a combination of stakeholders working together.

• Don’t just address the most obvious traditional stakeholders. Is there a way to mobilize citi-
zen-creators or expert-connectors in your campaign? Can your firm identify additional
stakeholders uniquely relevant to your business or industry?

• Remember that members of traditional stakeholder groups can occupy more than one social-
stakeholder identity at once or shift between identities. Look for ways to migrate
social-stakeholders from one identity to another, thus increasing participation.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The Council of Public Relations Firms would like to thank Kathy Baughman, principal, ComBlu,
for her valuable contributions to this paper.

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 STAKEHOLDERS 2.0 How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns
Footnotes
1 22
Study conducted by Burson Marsteller, reported on Mashable in
February 2010, downloaded April 20, 2010 at
http://mashable.com/2010/02/23/fortune-100-social-media/
2
“Email and Social Media Marketing Are Top Areas of Investment
in 2010,” press release, December 2, 2009, found at:
http://www.strongmail.com/company/news-and-
events/press_120209.php
3
Deloitte, “2009 Tribalization of Business Study,”
http://www.deloitte.com/us/2009tribalizationstudy
4
Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, Groundswell: Winning in a World
Transformed by Social Technologies, (Harvard Business School
Press, 2008).
5
We’ve removed from this matrix the bottom group in the original
Groundswell framework, “inactives.” All the other five personas
by definition will engage in spectatorship activities, so it’s not
necessary to define specific tactics to mobilize this group, nor
will most public relations campaigns wish to mobilize a group –
inactives – who by definition are unmobilizeable.
6
“Product Brand Development Campaign of the Year 2010,”
PRWeekus.com, March 11, 2010.
7
Price Waterhouse Coopers, 2010 Global CEO Survey Report: Eco-
nomic Outlook, Strategy, Growth,” downloaded April 20, 2010 at
http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/ceo-survey/index.jhtml.
8
http://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/community/
mystarbucksidea
9
“Dunkin Donuts Reveals Top 12 Fan-Created Donuts,” down-
loaded April 20, 2010 at
http://mashable.com/2010/04/19/dunkin-donuts-finalists/.
10
“The Mountain Dew DEWmocracy 2 Campaign Empowers
Brand Loyalists Nationwide to Create and Launch the Next New
DEW,” Press release, April 20, 2010, found at http://www.mar-
ketwatch.
com/story/the-mountain-dew-dewmocracy-2-campaign-
empowers-brand-loyalists-nationwide-to-create-and-launch-the-
next-new-dew-2010-04-20?reflink=MW_news_stmp.
11
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-ibm-uses-social-
media-to-spur-employee-innovation/
12
http://disneyworldforum.disney.go.com/home.aspx
13
http://twitter.com/jimbeamfans
14
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.show
Article&art_aid=109070
15
http://www.tagheuer.com/the-
brand/history/collectionneurs/index.lbl?lang=en
16
http://www.fanpop.com/spots/lady-gagas-fashion, down-
loaded July 28, 2010.
17
Elaine Wong, “How Special K Became a Social Media Star,”
Brandweek, August 29, 2009, found at http://www.brand
week.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/direct/
e3i2a5df3fe cd0d17839d40c63d15910359; http://music-
mix.ew.com/2010/ 07/29/kanye-west-twitter-champion/
18
Alexandra Bruell, “Old Spice goes beyond hot-man-in-towel
approach to boost sales,” PRWeek, July 21, 2010. Found at
http://www.prweekus.com/old-spice-goes-beyond-hot-man-in-
towel-approach-to-boost-sales/article/175111/
19
“Top Four Colleges in Social Media,” Advergirl.com, August 16,
2009. Found at http://leighhouse.typepad.com/advergirl
/2009/08/top-four-colleges-in-social-media.html
20
http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/deloitte/29646/.
21
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/05/26/how-best-buy-energ-
ized-170000-employees-with-social-media/
http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/category/cast-member-
profiles/
23
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-ibm-uses-social-
media-to-spur-employee-innovation/
24
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-ibm-uses-social-
media-to-spur-employee-innovation/
25
http://www.socialmediamarketing.com/blog/5-reasons-why-
the-home-depot-is-a-youtube-success
26
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/05/26/how-best-buy-energ-
ized-170000-employees-with-social-media/
27
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/05/26/how-best-buy-energ-
ized-170000-employees-with-social-media/
28
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bowling-Green-OH/Myles-
Pizza-Pub-Employee-Alumni/105247319505991
29
Christine Canabou, “Gone But Not Forgotten,” Fast Company,
April 30, 2002.
30
“Building the Case for An Alumni Network,” Human Capital
Institute, downloaded April 20, 2010 at
http://www.hci.org/lib/building-case-alumni-
network?utm_source=HCI_Members_Email&utm_medium=em
ail&utm_campaign=03-30_DD_Talent_Mem&utm_content=l
christiansen%40kaiserassociates.com.
31
http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/Alumni/The-Netw-
ork-Alumni/index.htm.
32
Staff Sgt. Margaret Nelson, “Army takes lead in social media net-
working to reach families, American public,” found at
http://www.army.mil/-news/2009/04/27/20233-army-takes-
lead-in-social-media-networking-to-reach-families-american-pub
lic/.
33
Robert Mackey, Israeli Raid Canceled After Facebook Leak, New
York Times, March 3, 2010.
34
http://www.citizenglobal.com/; democracynow.org.
35
http://theuptake.org/ {“Will journalism be done by you or to
you?]. See also http://www.brokenatlas.com/2010/01/19/
activist-journalists-bring-citizen-pro-media-together-at-cop15/.
36
http://www.americaspeakingout.com/
37
Craig Newmark, “How Social Media Can Effect Real Social and
Governmental Change,” downloaded April 20, 2010 at
http://mashable.com/2010/04/20/social-media-government-
change/
38
http://daveyd.com/. Also see http://www.pbs.org/medi-
ashift/2010/01/local-bloggers-step-up-to-watchdog-local-gover
nment014.html
39
See, for instance, http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=183
and http://www.bpcomplaints.com/.
40
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/gulf-oil-spill/bp-logo
41
http://www.casefoundation.org/blog/open-sourcing-innovat-
ion-citizens-community-problem-solving-and-digital-media
42
http://www.350.org/oct10.
43
http://tcktcktck.org/
44
http://www.ombwatch.org/
45
Casey Hibbard, “How LIVESTRONG Raised Millions to Fight
Cancer Using Social Media ,” socialmediaexaminer.com, April
13, 2010, found at http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/ how-
livestrong-raised-millions-to-fight-cancer-using-social-media/
46
http://www.facebook.com/pepsi; http://www.refreshevery-
thing.com/grant-recipients.
47
Elliott Spitzer, “We Own You!” Slate.com, January 12, 2010.
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